The Daily Gamecock

'Women of Lockerbie' works through grief

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Grief is almost always crippling, but it is how the characters deal and grow from it that makes "The Women of Lockerbie"  so therapeutic and moving.

The USC Department of Theatre and Dance presents “The Women of Lockerbie,” written by Deborah Brevoort and directed by Grace Ann Roberts, Nov. 20-23 in the Lab Theatre at Booker T. Washington Auditorium. Tickets are $5 and can only be purchased at the door. The show runs for 1 hour and 15 minutes with no intermission, so bring tissues. On Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a terrorist attack that took the lives of 259 passengers and crew traveling from London, England to New York City, New York. The plane crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland,  killing 11 more people on the ground. “The Women of Lockerbie” brings this horrific tragedy to life through the eyes of Bill and Madeline Livingston, who lost their 20-year-old son  in this catastrophe. The play exhibits turning evil into love and having faith even when life gives you a thousand reasons not to.

“This play is really a journey that springs from this historical event, but what’s so beautiful about it is that it encapsulates that magnitude of that moment in all aspects of a human’s life,” said Kelsea Woods, who plays Madeline Livingston.

The structure of the play mimics a Greek tragedy, incorporating a Greek chorus and a comic relief messenger for levity. This style of playwriting highlights and dramatizes the misery the event carries. Tragedy embodies the suffering of human beings brought upon by actions or events that are usually undeserved.

Woods was primarily inspired by the Greek concept of catharsis, where a great deal of emotions come to release.

“For my character, who experiences a lot of heavy emotions, going through the cycle of grief over and over and over ... I have this huge moment to release all the feelings that I have,” Woods said. “It’s really freeing and a really awesome feeling that is pretty typical of the Greek tragedy and why it’s such a powerful piece of drama.”

USC Lab Theatre is a black box theater  where spectators can sit around three of the four edges of the stage and watch the show from multiple angles to gain different perspectives of grief. The stage has been home to scores of passion projects and alternative plays, and for good reason — it fills a niche that bigger theaters do not.

“What’s interesting about the black box is how intimate the space is and how it adds a level of immediacy already just by having people in such close quarters,” Woods said.

The play is set in Scotland, and, in order to bolster the authenticity of the play, many of the actors were required to expand their repertoire of accents. Vocal coach Erica Tobolski came in, and during the first few weeks she worked with the actors and provided recordings from accent specialist David Stern. The actors also danced to traditional Scottish music to get in the Scottish mindset.

“It’s been a big team building exercise because we learned the accent together even with the [actors playing American characters], but then we’ve also been talking with our accents backstage and when we see each other outside of rehearsal,” said Abigail McNeely, who plays Hattie.

“The Women of Lockerbie” tells a story about the loss of hope and the renewal of faith, even after life knocks you down and makes you feel trapped. Its heart-wrenching scenes take its characters through a journey from hatred to cleansing of heart and mind. As said in the play, “When evil comes into the world it is up to us to turn it into love,” and that message is as universal as grief itself.

“You will suffer loss. At some point in your life, something bad is going to happen to you. We don’t all live in nice, plastic balls where nothing bad ever happens to us,” said Matt Couch, who plays Bill Livingston. “This play teaches you and shows you if you just let your grief take over, what happens; if you don’t listen to your grief, what happens; and if you let yourself heal, how therapeutic it can be.”


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